Georgia Peaches

This post will probably, most likely, for sure be all over the place.  Nothing too exciting has happened recently, actually quite opposite.  Shane is in the field for the first time this week, Monday-Friday [insert grumble here].  Therefore, I decided to just catch up on some random pictures from our time in Georgia, that were not deemed relevant for any other post.

Columbus has a really neat riverwalk that goes over 12 miles alongside the Chattahoochee river.  Its beautiful when the mosquitoes aren't out.

No, that is not the Chattahoochee, it is the street in front of our house.  Yes, it is flowing like a river [see video below].  Oh rain, I don't know what to think about you.  This week has actually been better, it hasn't rained at all, but most weeks it rains just about every other day like clockwork.  Many times we get torrential downpours for 30 minutes. 

One sunny day last week we went to Callaway Gardens.  They have the most beautiful man-made beach you've ever seen, it was nice to just relax in the sun a while.  Next time we will take hiking shoes, a frisbee, and more food & drinks.

This picture serves several purposes.  1.  So you can see our new couch!  We were very excited to finally get the deal we wanted on this set we had been watching.  Patience and prayers paid off [God is good, all the time].  2. Notice how long my hair was Monday morning when Shane left for the field.  3.  Just an updated picture of us, so you won't forget what we look like :) 

My hair Monday afternoon!  I finally cut over 6 inches off.

This was written on our sink counter top with a dry erase marker when I got home and Shane had left for the field (for a week).  "Sweaty pts in washer so you wouldn't have to do them... :)  LOVE SD"  [I cried].

Atlanta times two

We visited Atlanta twice in one week.  It wasn't planned that way, but just worked out.  We have now been to Ikea, Coca-Cola, CNN, Olympic park, and the underground in Atlanta.  Not to mention quite a few other sketchy places we didn't really mean to.  The last trip we met Shane's Aunt and Uncle in North Atlanta for dinner, and really enjoyed seeing some familiar faces.

First stop, Sublime doughnuts, a food network suggestion.  Think oreos, reeces, bananas foster, strawberries and cream. It was delicious, but full of sugar, literally.  I actually started to get sick after my second one later in the day.

Centennial Olympic park

 We happened upon a huge gospel concert in the park.  Think hands in the air, dancing, and Aretha Franklin.  [deja vu: Africa].  We were out of place.

Coca-Cola headquarters!

We both really enjoyed this tour, and almost made ourselves sick tasting so many carbonated drinks from around the world.

Next stop was CNN headquarters just a few blocks away.  We were able see a news segment being aired that was live on CNN, plus a lot of behind the scenes news desks, researchers, and anchors. 

We've already started planning our next trip to Atlanta to see the worlds largest aquarium in downtown Atlanta, and stone mountain.

Our house

As of Monday we finally have the entirety of our belongings in one place (more importantly all in one town), so I figured it was due time for a post about our (new-to-us) house.  Beware, this post is picture heavy!

Well there you have it.  That's our house.  To answer your question, no the entire thing is not ours.  We live on the second floor of this side of the house, but it is actually a four-plex.  These houses are enormous including a 3-room basement on each side, and 2-room attic with walk-in closets on each side.  Since we share this space with the family downstairs, we get the 2-room attic, and 1 room in the basement, equal right?  Honestly, I've been in the basement once, and that was just to see what it looked like, we have nothing down there, and need to tell the other family they can use it.  Our 2-room attic is plenty of storage space for us seeing that we came from a 2 bedroom apartment.  I'm enjoying spreading out more in our 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house here.

 The front porch/entrance.

This is what you find when you walk in our front door.  Pretty stairs up to our house.  Notice though you will only see one set of stairs in pictures today.  Yes, these are very pretty, the back stairs (which we actually use) are not so pretty, I would even venture to say, ugly.  If you come visit, please come to the front door!

 This is the before and after of our living room.  We love the hardwood floors, but are thinking a rug, and dust mop are in the near future.

The dinning room is definitely too big for our stuff, but I really enjoy eating all of our meals in here.  We even had friends over for dinner last night, and it served the four of us perfectly.

This is our narrow little kitchen.  We could use more counter space, but I'm guessing everyone says that.  Although, we do have tons of storage, which I am thankful for, even room for most of our kitchen gadgets.  I love it, and Shane and I joke that it must be our favorite room because it is the only one fully decorated (and matches- thanks fiestaware for my navy and green themed kitchen!).  We do seem to spend a lot of time in here though.

I must give my sister credit for this idea.  She has the same bar with hooks from Ikea, and we just copied her.  I really like that I can hang useful things up there, although what is hanging changes depending on what I'm doing.

These are the pre-stuff pictures from our bedroom.  We had to organize however we could, living out of suit cases got old after 2 weeks.

This is our bedroom now.  There is still plenty of work to do, but I'm loving having our stuff in it.

Master bathroom (above).  I must say the shower is tiny.  Once we got our stuff, Shane quickly moved to showering in the guest bath (picture below) where there is more room.

  These two lovely appliances are my current prized possession.  I feel like I do laundry everyday, just because I can (I know it won't last long...).  When we got to Ft. Benning we realized that no on-post housing comes with a washer/dryer or microwave.  I started searching on craigslist immediately because I couldn't bear to just go pay full price at Sears.  Well let me tell you, that was quite the experience for both Shane and I.  We called, texted, and emailed probably 3-5 sellers everyday looking for a "new" used washer/dryer set.  After two weeks, three different visits for potential picks, driving through several different ghetto areas, being called a "craigslist killer", and being scared out of our minds, we finally found a local doctor who was selling this new/used set for a very reasonable price (and didn't live in the ghetto!).  Thank you Lord for an honest, helpful and extremely nice seller because I didn't know how many more trips I could survive to the laundromat on post.

 These are pictures of our attic rooms.  There are real stairs right outside our kitchen door that lead to the attic, so its basically like a third story of our house.  We just have Christmas decorations, ski clothes, keepsakes, sports equipment and a few other things up there we won't use often.

 Shane's West Point shipment finally arrived!

 Boxes, boxes and more boxes.  This was taken when our (un)packers brought our stuff.  We were blessed with three very nice men to unpack our stuff, and everything went smoothly.  A big change from the disaster of packers we had.  Although we are still marveling at the king box springs, and twin bed railings we received that are not ours???  We have very few boxes left to actually unpack, and are enjoying finally having a home!

 I hope you enjoyed the extensive tour of our home.  Come visit anytime!

Moving Roadtrip

Its true.  A new blog post.  Don't hold your breath, but there will be more soon.  We now have a house (separate post to come about that), and Internet, so blogging should be a lot easier than it has the past month or so.  We are finally getting settled here in Georgia, and I was able to go through some pictures and rewind a few weeks ago of when this adventure began.  If you read the Things we've learned post down below you'll get a good glimpse of our three day road trip to Georgia, but here are some pictures to go along.

 This was our set-up for the three day adventure.  

End of the first day traveling, we spent the night somewhere in Louisiana.  I was tired, probably grumpy, and had shed way too many tears from leaving my family and Texas.  Luckily, Shane understands the power of Diet Coke, frozen Cokes from Sam's and Shopping.

Day two was better, and our first stop was across the Mississippi river.  We were amazed at how wide it was.   

We also visited Vicksburg, Mississippi a big civil war battle site.  Although it was rainy, and we were pulling my car, we drove around the park for several hours.

Day three, I was excited to get to Georgia.  First we conquered the back roads of Alabama, and did quite a bit of shopping along the way.

Our first stop in Georgia was to loose that car that had been following way too closely the past three days.  Shane was thrilled not to be pulling my car anymore!

Our first meal in Georgia was provided by Jason's Deli (wedding pasta).  I should have taken a picture of the outside of our new home - Hampton Inn and Suites.  It truly did start to feel like home after 9 days here, the staff definitely knew us.  I'm pretty sure they thought we'd moved in permanently with the amount of stuff we had in our room, including all my plants!

The crock pot soon became my friend, along with waffles for breakfast, high-speed wireless Internet, the workout room, daily cleaning services, and the pool.

Shane leaving for his first day of work in the real Army.  I was so sad to send him off alone, but everything worked out fine, and he survived.  We have quickly fallen into a routine with that 5am alarm for pt every morning, although its not my favorite, it works.

First Hair Cut

After we got married Shane and I decided I should try to give him haircuts at home.  Seeing that the Army has tight hair requirements, and at West Point he was getting a hair cut almost every week, this should end up saving us a lot of money.  We'll see.  This was my first attempt, I have a lot of learning to do, but it didn't end up as bad as I thought it might! 

 These are before pictures.  It had been about 6 weeks since his last hair cut.

The finished product, quite handsome in my opinion.  I even told him I'd still go out in public with him, so it must have looked okay!  Afterward he even offered to cut my hair, such a sweetheart.

Fourth of July Texas Tour

We started out on a 1,000 mile tour of Texas the Monday before 4th of July.  We started out driving to Odessa to pack up the rest of Shane's things, and see his family.  It was a relaxing time, as it always is there.  Leaving Odessa we headed to Boerne, Texas to visit my Grandma, Aunt and Uncle.  We had a good visit with them, and catching up with grandma for the afternoon.  Leaving Boerne we headed to Leakey, Texas to catch up with some good family friends of mine, the Smith's.  Although as you'll see below it was very dry and dusty we had a great time hanging out.  4-wheeling and shooting seemed to be the theme of our entire trip.  In the afternoon we went to a local swimming hole to cool off.  I didn't get pictures, but all of the guys enjoyed their rope swings out over the river.  We had a blast, and I'm glad Shane finally got to meet some of my good friends.  Though we couldn't stay long because our next stop was Yorktown, Texas to meet up at Shane's uncles ranch with more family and friends.  This trip consisted of even more 4-wheeling, eating, hunting, visiting with family, and probably more eating (I'm beginning to see a trend in blog post, it's amazing we don't weigh 500 lbs after this summer).  Monday (4th of July), we headed back to good ol' College Station to end the tour with a cookout at my sister's house (yes, more food!), with the rest of my family.  Overall, we had a great week, saw so many close family and friends, it was truly a blessing to be able to see them all before we left town. 

 Do you believe me about the dust now?

 My sweet brother who was also covered in dirt.

 Can you tell which one was leading the pack of 4-wheelers?

 Yes, they hearded and caught a goat!

Alex helping his girlfriend Bekah.

 My sweet friend Laura, who also happens to be Ross's girlfriend!

 Laura has more pictures of Shane and I, and I have more of Laura and Ross.  We shot skeet one afternoon at the ranch.  It was my first time, and we all had a ton of fun!